The present invention relates generally to a carrier bracket for use with a power cylinder, and more particularly, to a carrier bracket for use in transferring reciprocal movement from a piston within a power cylinder to a desired work piece.
Several types of power cylinders currently exist in the art including, among possible others, cable cylinders, band cylinders and rodless cylinders. The carrier bracket of the present invention has particular application to rodless cylinders of the type described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,545,290. Such a rodless cylinder includes an elongated cylinder member, an elongated, longitudinally extending slot, a piston reciprocally movable within the cylinder member, a sealing means for successively sealing the slot during reciprocal movement of the piston and a piston bracket for transferring the reciprocal movement of the piston to a point outside of the cylinder. In some applications, this piston bracket is connected directly to the desired work piece for transferring reciprocal movement of the piston to such work piece.
In another rodless cylinder of the type illustrated in European Patent Application No. 68,088, published Jan. 5, 1983, the piston bracket includes integral arms extending outwardly from the piston portion of the bracket to the outer surface of the cylinder side walls. The outer ends of these arms are provided with a plurality of inwardly facing low friction wedges which bear against correspondingly shaped grooves in the side walls of the cylinder for the purpose of guiding the piston bracket during its reciprocal movement. In this structure, the low friction wedges are mounted on the ends of set screws extending through a portion of the support arms for adjusting the bearing force between the low friction wedges and the side walls of the cylinder.
Although the above mentioned structure described in European Patent Application No. 68,088 provides certain of the stability and guiding functions which the bracket of the present invention is designed to perform, its structure is quite complicated and costly to manufacture. Further, such device discloses a structure in which the carrier bracket portion is integrally formed with the piston bracket portion and in which the adjustment of the friction or bearing force provided by the low friction wedges requires a multitude of time-consuming adjustments. Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved carrier bracket for a power cylinder which is of relatively uncomplicated construction and easy to use and adjust, is inexpensive to manufacture and which also provides the desired stability and guidance between the carrier bracket and the cooperating cylinder.